France Should End Store Restrictions, Vente-Privee Founder Says

By Andrew Roberts -
Oct 8, 2013

French regulations barring
shopkeepers from opening Sunday and after 9 p.m. are antiquated,
according to the founder of online retailer Vente-Privee.com.

“The laws sometimes have to be open to the new world, and
the new world is business that never stops,” entrepreneur
Jacques-Antoine Granjon said in a phone interview. “Where there
is a need and where you have people who are ready to work, they
should let them work.”

The French government is studying a 1906 law that forbids
most non-food retailers from opening Sunday as some stores clash
with unions over trading hours amid the highest metropolitan
unemployment rate in 14 years. Last month, a court ruled do-it-yourself retailers Kingfisher Plc (KGF)’s Castorama and Groupe Adeo’s
Leroy Merlin should stay shut Sundays, while LVMH Moet Hennessy
Louis Vuitton SA (MC)’s Sephora chain was ordered to close its Champs
Elysees branch by 9 p.m. on weekdays.

Vente-Privee, which sells branded goods at discounted
prices in eight European countries and in the U.S., is reaping
the benefits of fewer restrictions for online merchants. The
third-most-visited website daily in France after Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)
and EBay Inc. (EBAY) forecasts revenue will rise 15 percent to 20
percent this year with growth in all its markets, including
Spain and Italy, Granjon said. Sales reached 1.3 billion euros
($1.8 billion) last year.

“The potential of this company is huge,” he said. “We
have a long view of developing” it.

Sales in the U.S., which Vente-Privee entered in November
2011 through a joint venture with credit card company American
Express Co. (AXP), may as much as double this year to $50 million,
Granjon said. The unit, based in Manhattan, should reach its
goal of being profitable by 2015, he said.

Vente-Privee doesn’t plan to hold an initial public
offering as it has enough cash to fund investment and is
profitable, Granjon also said.

“I’m not in a business where I’m looking for growth at any
price,” he said. “For me, profitability and growth together is
very important because it’s the only way for me to keep the
company independent financially.”